Asheville safe for me? (Brevard: apartment complexes, condos, crime rate)

[astronaut]

Hi, I'm new here, so sorry if there is a thread very similar to this. I'm currently living in a small town, never lived in a city before and I am looking to move to Asheville. I'm an artist, so you can understand the attraction. For a woman in her early 20's planning on living by herself, where is a safe, preferably cheap area of the city for me to start looking?

Any advice or tips are more than welcome!

[jsnas]

If you want to be close to town I would search for something in West Asheville, or perhaps the Oakley community near Biltmore Village.

[Asheville Native]

Originally Posted by jsnas

If you want to be close to town I would search for something in West Asheville

Find out where the Pisgah View projects are and give them a wide berth, west of I240 is fine, but avoid State St. Hanover area, which is between I240 and the river, unless you want to live near a very active drug dealing area, and the sound of gunfire doesn't really upset you.

[astronaut]

Thanks, I am not really sure where these places are, I have only been to Asheville once two years ago and was on a tight time frame. I have heard a lot of mixed reviews about west Asheville, I really want to be within walking distance of music clubs, coffee houses, art galleries, etc. I actually do a lot of walking, so my "walking distance" might be different from others. I just dont want to have to do a lot of driving. Are there places in west Asheville where there as definite good and bad spots, or are they kind of all mixed in together? I am not planning on having a room mate and I don't know really anyone up there (outside a family friend) and I most DEFINITELY want to be safe on top of everything.

Does anyone know what it's like to actually live in that part of Asheville? What is the cost of living? Do any apartments allow pets? What is the atmosphere and what are the people like? What kind of businesses are around that area?

Sorry I have so many questions, I am pretty much desperate for ANY information that I can gather. I am planning to visit within the next month or so, and I want to be prepared and have places know what to look for and all of that. Any information any of you had is absolutely more than welcome.

[gigimac]

Hi Astro,
Don't take my word for anything I say here, only you can determine what you're happy with when you visit. This is just to give my own experience, and also begin to familiarize you with the area. Also, listen to everyone else who posts, and put the whole thing together to get your picture.

When I was a female in my early 30s, I lived in Historic Montford, just north of the city, biking distance to downtown. The further north in that neighborhood you can get, near Montford Park which is the park itself, the better... that is, avoid living within a couple blocks of the freeway, which encircles the city. Also, I think there are newer apartments (not sure if they're condos) at the very north end of Montford, might work. Anyhow, in Montford, you should not be on foot or on a bike late at night, so all your talk about clubs, you're going to need a car, and even then, you should "pack it in" at midnight and always have someone with you, plus if you're going to drink, take a taxi.

Also north of the city, all around UNCA, the university here, would be fairly convenient, because you could walk to Merrimon Avenue, which is not "downtown," but it does have shops and clubs lining the busy four-lane thru there. The late-night walks, tho, again you cannot do that.

The advice about living in West Asheville, what works about that area is, they have their own mini-downtown, a club, a restaurant, a store, a cafe. But you can only get to downtown Asheville via car, it's a long ways out. In West Asheville, living north of Brevard Road and west of Haywood Road, bordered by Patton Avenue is the best area, and of course the farther from Haywood Road you get, the longer the walk... again, do not walk around late at night. I hope you have a map, you'll be able to find those streets easily on one.

Of course look at the online newspapers for our area, The Asheville Citizen-Times and The Mountain Xpress, and with your map, check out the locales of some places that sound like you want to live there, in order to familiarize yourself with where everything is by how they refer to the areas (like UNCA, Montford, North...all that's north of the city; and West Asheville is west a looong ways from the city; and so forth). Apartment complexes, you can find their individual websites online, and they will give maps and directions.

I suppose if you kind of narrow down a few spots that sound good, you could run the areas by us again, and we can give you the low-down, and that'll help steer you for when you visit. By the way, city living is totally different from small-town living. It's easy to get lost, there's a lot of cars and activity, it takes forever to get anywhere, and ordinary safety rules have to be practiced continually... altho Asheville is safer than, say, Atlanta, on account of size and sprawl.
GG

[astronaut]

Thanks, that is a lot more helpful. The biggest city that I go to around here is actually pretty small of a city, and though I usually have friends with me, a lot of times I feel safe walking around there by myself. I also go down into the more historic parts of the small towns around here and it's no problem at all for me to just walk around alone, lots of times I won't even see people when I'm out after closing hours, so you can see where that comes from. I hadn't even thought of North Asheville. When I went before I don't remember where we stayed, but it was just outside of the city and while I don't mind driving places, I am really really not fond of parking garages, which the part of Asheville I saw seemed to have. What is the whole traffic situation like? The other city I was considering moving to you have to use cars at an absolute minimum most of the time, which is another reason I wanted to walk. Parking there is horrible and a lot of the student-aged people who live there don't even bring their cars with them to school. Asheville doesn't seem as quite compact as that place, but like I said I've only seen a small part of it.

[Ripshin]

Just stay away from the more remote areas. I LOVE Asheville, but was the victim of a nasty mugging there a few years ago. There's a huge artistic "colony" in the area, and many benefits. But I'm no longer blind to the fact that bad things can happen anywhere.

[NC_Paddler]

Originally Posted by astronaut

Hi, I'm new here, so sorry if there is a thread very similar to this. I'm currently living in a small town, never lived in a city before and I am looking to move to Asheville. I'm an artist, so you can understand the attraction. For a woman in her early 20's planning on living by herself, where is a safe, preferably cheap area of the city for me to start looking?

Any advice or tips are more than welcome!

Asheville is a pretty safe city (and at only 75K people, it is a small city at that). West Asheville sounds like the perfect spot for you, given your interests and budget (although be prepared that "cheap" in Asheville is a lot more expensive than most small towns, depending on where you're coming from).

Don't let the hyperbolic warnings about "housing projects" scare you away. Given that some of these people have probably never left Buncombe County for longer than a week, you have to take it with a grain of salt.

[astronaut]

Thanks, I really appreciate the info. The talk about the bad places in west Asheville was kind of making me nervous, but I was talking to some family friends from there and they seemed to think it would be fine. So this is all pretty encouraging, thanks.

[Asheville Native]

Originally Posted by NC_Paddler

Don't let the hyperbolic warnings about "housing projects" scare you away. Given that some of these people have probably never left Buncombe County for longer than a week, you have to take it with a grain of salt.

So you live near Pisgah View, or do you know someone that does? I guess there are those that really enjoy watching drug deals from their front porch, or policing the drug paraphernalia from their yards before the mow, or go to sleep listening to the gun fire that while infrequent is still all to routine.

I know a guy that move into the area from Atlanta, completely oblivious to the problems of the projects, and he is hating it, and he is stuck because he can't sell after updating his house due to the crime in the area.

Or are you in the same boat, and bitter that you didn't receive or listen to advise about areas to avoid?

And the crimes plotted on the Asheville PD's crime map, just more hyperbolic warnings? You know the bright yellow areas on the crime map that are the projects and immediate surrounding areas?

Violent Crime rate for West Asheville, for the Riverside Drive/Amboy road area is 55 per 1000 people, vs. 6.86 for Asheville as a whole, and 5.05 for the entire state. Just facts, easily found on the internet; but we all know how inconvenient facts can be to those that try to disprove reality.

Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitors sites is not allowed